March 17

UNC Health Care continues to move forward with its creation of a system Human Resources function for our owned facilities (Caldwell Memorial, Chatham Hospital, High Point Regional, UNC Medical Center, UNC Physicians Network, and UNC REX Healthcare). Bill Rotella, System Vice President for Human Resources, and the HR System Executive Directors have spent the last month interviewing candidates for the remaining leadership roles within Human Resources. They are pleased to announce the following appointments that are effective immediately.

The 10-year ASCVD (Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease) Risk calculator is now available in Epic@UNC! The calculator uses the pooled cohort equations (Goff et al, 2013) to estimate the risk of developing a first-time ASCVD event within the next 10-year period for patients age 40 – 79 who do not already have clinical ASCVD.

In order for UNC Health Care to adequately send complete claims for services provided, we must always include an ''onset date" in Epic@UNC. After extensive research, it was determined that the best option is to require an onset date for each appointment and encounter. On March 24, 2016, the new required onset date will appear on the Encounter Info Form.

Beginning Tuesday, March 22, we ask that all inpatient providers begin using the “Anticipate Discharge” order to identify patients with greater than a 50% change of being discharged the following day. This order notifies both nursing and Clinical Care Management of the potential for the patient’s discharge and also begins the process of collecting the necessary information to ensure a timely discharge for the patient.

The best people to support our colleagues during Go-Live #4 and #5 are our co-workers who already use Epic@UNC. As an incentive to help, UNC Health Care is offering $15/hour on top of each co-worker’s base hourly rate to provide 'at-the-elbow' Go-Live support. If you are interested, first talk to your manager and then, if you receive approval, complete this form.

Recent regulatory activities within the FDA and CMS, related to laboratory-developed tests and quality-control requirements, have prompted a review of current flow cytometric tests for patients receiving cell-depleting therapies such as Thymoglobulin and Rituximab.

Phishing emails are those emails that we all see on occasion that attempt to trick the recipient in to giving up some sensitive information such as login IDs and passwords, social security numbers, banking information, etc. Most of these emails have reached a level of sophistication that often makes it hard to identify them from the real thing. So how do we do it?

Please visit the Dillard's Fundraising Sale in the Children's Hospital lobby March 22 - 24. Payroll deduction is available to all eligible UNC Health Care employees. All fundraising sales are sponsored by the UNC Volunteer Association and all proceeds benefit UNC Health Care.

On March 2, the State Employees Combined Campaign held a recognition event at the Governor's Mansion in Raleigh. Senior Executive Assistant Becky Medford represented UNC, the School of Medicine, and UNC Health Care at the event.

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Nashville/Midsouth Chapter, recently recognized the visual storytelling partnership of UNC Health Care and StoryDriven with an Emmy Award for Editor/Program.